Saturday, June 21, 2008

TechEd Australia, the mobile story

September seems like a long way off, but before you know it it will be here and so will TechEd Australia.
I (and other great community members) have been working with the guys down under to help shape the look and feel of TechEd for you to learn about mobile development.
Don Kerr has posted the current thinking for the sessions, what do you think?

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Silverlight Mobile with John L Scott Real Estate

Some of the recent work I have been doing with Silverlight Mobile is showcased in an interview with John L. Scott on Channel 10.
This project has been done with a pre-release version of Silverlight Mobile and uses Virtual Earth maps to display real estate property near you on your Windows Mobile phone.
Credit is due to Tricky Business for the slick and clean user interface design.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

PDC 2008, will you be there?

I have just registered for PDC 2008. It should be awesome. It sounds like a heap of new technology platforms will be discussed and explored at this event. As the web site says "Wanna be where the action is?" then you better get registered for this event.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Software Quality is not optional

The last day of TechEd and I did two panel sessions. The topic of the first panel session was software quality.
The panel had an awesome line up including; Billy Hollis, Jeffrey Palermoand David Platt.
In this panel were people I respect, they are smart, have worked in the industry for a while and know their areas well.
Then I discover some panel members (called Billy and David) are happy to accept that software will be built with defects, they do not believe that the software they write is likely to be defect free.
This makes me wonder what hope the industry has as a whole.
The software you produce is an output of your goals. Aim high to achieve high targets. Aim for zero defect software, do everything in your power to build zero defect software and the chances are you can get there.
If you start with the belief that this software will have defects when you are finished building it, then your chances of delivering zero defect software are already lower.

Friday, June 06, 2008

C++ and COM, the way to program Windows

I presented a session this morning at TechEd on building applications that work with Windows Vista Sync Center. Sync Center exposes COM interfaces and requires your application to expose COM interfaces.
This is easy, this is Windows software development like it has been for at least 10 years. It is well defined, well known and well supported.
Hearing developers complain about having to use C++ and do COM development today made me realise that the .NET developer generation is missing out on so many areas of the Windows development opportunities.
My advice, go and learn C++ and COM, it is how many of the Windows Vista features are exposed to developers and with good reason.
If you are not prepared to learn how to program your computer then you should question why you are in the software development business.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

SideShow for Windows Mobile

It seems like the SideShow team is really getting things together now. This week Windows SideShow for Windows Mobile is shipping as a developer preview. this lets you use your Windows Mobile device as a Windows Vista SideShow display.
I have shown this in various demo situations over the last couple of years and now you can get your hands on the technology and start building for it using the new Managed APIs.

Also be sure to check out the SideShow gadget development contest NVidia is running.

Lunch with Bill Gates

Half way into day one of TechEd 2008 and 15 of the top community folks (Regional Directors, MVPs etc) were invited to an Influencer Roundtable lunch with Bill Gates.
Bill is such a switched on person, the whole room spent most of the lunch listening to Bill's words of wisdom. Bill thinks big and acts big, I like this man.
The first half of the lunch conversation was around education and the things that can be done to improve education both globally and in the USA. Interesting stuff. I think that once Bill puts more energy into the foundation we will see amazing things happen.
Each of the attendees also was presented an award for our achievements.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Virtually back in Vienna

Vienna in Austria now has really sweet 3D buildings available in Virtual Earth. I was just there speaking at the MIX Essentials event 2 weeks ago. Now I can virtually visit Vienna any time I like.

Awesome!

TechEd 2008 Day 0

It's only the end of day 0?
Wow, its been a fun packed day already, with lots of the familiar faces in the community engaging in conversations about all things good, bad and beautiful in the world of software development.
I could hardly walk 10 yards today without meeting someone who I knew or knew me, or even better both :)
It's always good to finally meet people I have had email conversations with and put faces to names.
I helped to get a bunch of demos running today that will be shown on the show floor at the product booths. If you are at TechEd you should certainly swing by and have a look at some of the cool product demos.
I am already getting a good feeling about the event splitting so IT Pro and Developers have their own events. This week is the developer week (no surprises) and I am getting good vibes about this. Developers connecting with developers and knowing that nearly everyone else is a developer will make the meal time conversations easier.
If you are at TechEd then come and find me and say hello.
I will be often found in and around the Windows Mobile booth space.